File Photo: Customer will be assisted by staff at the Ethiopia Telecom branch office in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, June 7, 2019. REUTERS / Tiksa Negeri
Addis Ababa (Reuters) -State-owned Ethiopian state-owned telecommunications, which called on private investors to buy shares, said its annual sales increased 18.4% to reach 56.5 billion bulls ($ 1.29 billion) by the end of June. CEO Frechwott Tamil said. on Tuesday.
Last month, Ethiopia launched a bidding process for a proposal to sell 40% of Ethiopia’s stake to retail investors as part of the government’s broader plan to open the telecommunications sector in the Horn of Africa.
On Tuesday, Frehiwot told reporters that the company had a 22% increase in subscribers to reach 56.2 million.
She also said that 6.58 million customers have signed up to take advantage of a mobile money service known as Telebirr, which launched in May.
The platform allows users to send and receive money at designated agencies, deposit and withdraw cash, pay invoices to merchants, and receive cash sent from abroad.
The CEO said expanding 4G services outside the capital Addis Ababa was one of the reasons for the surge in revenue, despite the difficult years.
“When we started the budget year, the internet was shut down, which caused us to lose billions of dollars, and the crisis in the northern region. [Tigray] It was also unexpected, “says Frehiwot.
Ethiopia’s telecommunications business, a country with a population of over 100 million, has attracted investors, but some have been postponed due to the slow pace of economic change and the risks associated with ethnic instability and conflict in the Tigray region.
In May, regulators granted a license to a consortium led by Safaricom, Vodafone in Kenya, and Sumitomo in Japan. The group paid $ 850 million for the license.
($ 1 = 43.9507 Bull)(Report by Dawit Endeshaw, Written by Omar Mohammed, Edited by George Obulutsa and Jason Neely)Ethiopian State Telecommunications reports full-year revenue growth of 18.4%-CEO Source link Ethiopian State Telecommunications reports full-year revenue growth of 18.4%-CEO